Tea and Scones

A cold day, but it is not raining so off we went to the Apple Fest. There were a few fun things, but it is basically a craft show - not my cup of tea. The lines were too long for the real goodies, the apple fritters, the apple dumplings, the other apple treats. So we settled for Spiedies, Cokes and sweet potato fries. For those of you not from New York, Spiedies started as a State Fair treat. Generally chicken or pork marinated for 2+ days in a vinegar based barbecue sauce, grilled, and served on a bun. Very luscious and now available almost everywhere, at least in NY. If you've not had the fries, get some, they are definitely worth it.

So how do you top that? Since I was cold, I decided to make scones, nice orange currant ones. A treat and a way to warm up the house with the oven. The scones I got from a nifty little book, Simply Scones by Leslie Weinert and Barbara Albright. It is about 5x5 inches and has about 70 scone recipes and 20 spreads for the scones, plus a short but accurate discussion of tea - both the beverage and the meal. Most of the recipes are for sweet scones but there is a goodly section of savory ones as well, including the one I want to try next - Uptown scones with a mix of Italian cheeses, sundried tomato, basil, hot pepper and pinenuts. I think a very strong Ceylon or Keemun might go with these.

What did I have with my much more demure scones - Liberteas "Chocolate Rose Romance".Can you tell I didn't get my treat today? Upon opening the tin, I am taken in by the wonderful smell of good chocolate and good tea. It is a pretty tea, with some nice Ceylon leaves, pink rose petals, chocolate nibs, chocolate shavings, tiny chocolate chips, some bits of perhaps dried apple? Can you say "yum"? As it brewed it of course smelled of chocolate. I have to say I am reluctant to taste teas like this because I like to taste the tea itself and I am always afraid they will be sweet, which I don't like. This tea, for me, is a great success. I can taste the very good quality Ceylon, with the chocolate as a lovely embellishment and it is not sweet! Really a great success as far as I am concerned. I added a bit of cream, which brought out more of the chocolate, but no sugar, which perhaps would've brought out more. Why ruin such a good thing? It went very nicely with the scones, too, the chocolate and the orange peel setting each other off nicely.

The photo above is of a Swiss mountain goat; perhaps it is one of Heidi"s?